Thursday, December 30, 2010

Audi TT car review - Top Gear - BBC

The Audi TT is a two-door sports car manufactured by Audi Hungaria Motor Kft. in Győr, Hungary, since 1998, for the German automaker and Volkswagen Group subsidiary AUDI AG.The Audi TT is now in its second generation — and both generations have been available in two car body styles; as a 2+2 Coupé, or two-seater Roadster. They have been built on consecutive generations of the Volkswagen Group A platform, starting with the A4 (PQ34). As a result of this platform-sharing, the Audi TT has identical powertrain and suspension layouts as its related platform-mates; this includes a front-mounted transversely oriented engine, front-wheel drive or quattro permanent four-wheel drive system, and fully independent front suspension using MacPherson struts.

The styling of the Audi TT began in the spring of 1994 at the Volkswagen Group Design Center in California.The TT was first shown as a concept car at the 1995 Frankfurt Motor Show.The design is credited to J Mays and Freeman Thomas,with Hartmut Warkuss, Peter Schreyer,Martin Smithand Romulus Rost contributing to the award-winning interior design.A previously unused laser beam welding adaptation, which enabled seamless design features on the first-generation TT, delayed its introduction. Audi did not initially offer any type of automatic transmission option for the TT. However, from 2003, a dual clutch six-speed Direct-Shift Gearbox (DSG) became available, with the United Kingdom TT variants becoming the world's first user of a dual clutch transmission configured for a right-hand drive vehicle, although the outright world first for a road car equipped with a dual clutch transmission was claimed earlier by a Volkswagen Group platform-mate, the left hand drive Volkswagen Golf Mk4 R32.The Audi TT takes its name from the successful motor racing tradition of NSU in the British Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) motorcycle race. NSU began competing in the TT in 1911, and later merged into the company now known as Audi.The Audi TT also follows the NSU 1000TT, 1200TT and TTS cars of the 1960s in taking their names from the race. The TT name has also been attributed to the phrase "Technology & Tradition"